Episode 8: Pride Party
In Episode 8: Pride Party of Burn It All Down, Lindsay Gibbs and Brenda Elsey discuss the current state of LGBTQ issues in sports with Amira Rose Davis and Jen Mac Ramos. Then Shireen Ahmed brings us an interview about roller derby and trans inclusion in sports with Alex Hanna, and Lindsay talks with WNBA star Layshia Clarendon of the Atlanta Dream about the WNBA’s journey with LGBTQ inclusion and her experience as a black, gay, non-cisgender athlete. (Note: The audio of the Clarendon interview is from a phone call; please excuse the sound difference.) Zoe Hayden of the Victory Press joins Brenda and Lindsay for the Burn Pile, followed by our record-smashing Bad Ass Woman of the Week.
Welcome to our special Pride Party episode! (3:18) Prof. Amira Rose Davis discusses the state of out LGBTQ athletes in major sports’ leagues, from Michael Sam to recent announcements. Discussion of race plays a role in shaping the process of coming out. Conversation moves to LGBTQ players and fans in women’s sports, marketability, capitalism, and race. Discussion of international state of affairs Nigerian, Brazilian, and US women national teams – how do race and sexuality differ across place? Amira Rose Davis discusses historical precedents of sex testing and its relationship of race. Finally panel discusses state of LGBTQ in women’s college coaching (22:31) Jen Mac Ramos joins BIAD to discuss Pride Nights in MLB and how sports’ organizations could make a more inclusive environment for LGBTQ fans/players. Brenda discusses FIFA’s efforts to stop Mexican fans’ homophobic chants. Conversation about Christian Faith Night and St. Louis Cardinals – and the PR versus genuine commitment to LGBTQ rights.
Jen Mac Ramos discusses their personal reasons for publicly discussing gender identity as sports’ admin (35:33) Shireen Ahmed interviews Alex Hanna, a professor at University of Toronto and roller derbier, activist working in transgender inclusion in education and healthcare. Alex discusses the power of roller derby for trans and queer communities. (50:17) Layshia Clarendon discuss Pride month and the WNBA. Clarendon discusses the changes over the last five seasons and changes in embrace of LGBTQ rights. She urges athletes to defend trans members of community. (1:09:40) Burn Pile, joined by Zoë Hayden from Victory Press about the narratives of out athletes that put pressure on athletes to come out. Brenda Elsey burns Sally Jenkins for blaming Title IX for problems in women’s sports (1:19:06) Bad Ass Woman of the Week: Diana Taurasi , including clips from WNBA stars and LeBron James congratulating Taurasi becoming all-time scoring record (1:25:08)
Links
Michael Sam’s 2014 announcement coming out: http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/10429030/michael-sam-missouri-tigers-says-gay
Ryan O’Callaghan’s announcement this week: https://www.outsports.com/2017/6/20/15835374/ryan-ocallaghan-gay-nfl-new-england-patriots-kansas-city-chiefs
Swoopes’ coming out in 2005: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/sports/basketball/swoopes-says-she-is-gay-and-exhales.html and http://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/13835681/what-sheryl-swoopes-got-wrong-today-wnba
Candace Wiggins saying she was bullied in WNBA for being straight
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2694174-candice-wiggins-says-she-was-bullied-during-wnba-career
The Seattle teams joining together: http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/seattle-pro-sports-teams-unite-to-promote-lgbt-inclusion/
Minor league baseball teams Pride Nights: https://www.outsports.com/2017/5/18/15657166/great-lakes-loons-york-revolution-baseball-lgbt-pride-nights
Berkman and the Cardinals Christian Night: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/berkman-explains-his-comments-opposing-equal-rights-ordinance/article_ea6d4526-6768-56ce-8c57-3bf2a82bc8d1.html
Alex Hanna:
Sally Jenkins’ column, “Women’s college athletes don’t need another coddling parent. They need a coach.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/womens-college-athletes-dont-need-another-coddling-parent-they-need-a-coach/2017/06/23/4765cf40-5820-11e7-a204-ad706461fa4f_story.html
Diana Taurasi Breaks WNBA All-Time Scoring Record: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/19/533546960/diana-taurasi-breaks-wnba-all-time-scoring-record
Audio for the BAWOTW about Taurasi setting the record for career points in the WNBA:
Transcript
Lindsay: Hello, and welcome to Burn It All Down. It might not be the feminist sports podcast you want, but it's the feminist sports podcast you need. As you might've already noticed, I'm not Julie DiCaro. I'm Lindsay Gibbs, the sports reporter from ThinkProgress. Julie's off this week, as are Jessica Luther and Shireen Ahmed. But I am here with the incomparable Brenda Elsey, an associate professor at Hofstra. We are here today to bring you an extra special episode of Burn It All Down: Pride Party! Where we discuss LGBTQ issues in sports in every segment. Brenda, how are you doing?
Brenda: I'm feeling great today. How are you?
Lindsay: I'm doing good. Have you done anything special for pride month?
Brenda: You know, I did. Last weekend, there was an inaugural pride party in my town of Red Hook, New York, nestled in the Hudson Valley. There's about, I don't know, 2000 of us in the village. And they launched their inaugural parade and I was there and I was really excited to be there and to document it with my family. And I really think there's something unique and special when you get to those local parades. I've been to the New York city one for many, many years, and it's an awesome celebration, but I do feel like it's all the more important at the local level where there's a lot of vulnerable people in our community. So I was really proud to be there and proud of the people who organized it. What about you?
Lindsay: That's amazing. I have been in the big city here in DC. I've been to a few different pride nights. I went to both the Washington Nationals pride night, and the Mystics had two games on pride weekend here in DC, which was earlier this month. I was at both of those talking to the players and covering the games. And so that was really fun. I also marched in the Pride March. So, DC had both the parade and a march. I marched with some athletes from Athlete Ally, which is an organization that aims to end homophobia in sports. And so that was very fun to march with them and tell their stories for a piece on ThinkProgress. But I feel like I've been fully immersed in the pride month in sports. And I'm really excited for this episode.
So, we've got a really special episode, as I mentioned, jam-packed with guests. We have Jen Mac Ramos and Amira Rose Davis here. They're going to talk with us about the current state of LGBTQ issues in sports. Shireen Ahmed will bring us an interview with Alex Hanna to talk about trans inclusion in sports. And then I'm going to be talking with WNBA star Layshia Clarendon about her experience as a Black non-cisgender gay athlete. Zoë Hayden at The Victory Press will join us for the burn pile. And as always, we will honor a badass woman of the week, but you will have to stay tuned to find out who she is. So, this episode, as you can see, is a loaded. So let's just get right into it.
All right. Joining us now is Amira Rose Davis. She is an assistant professor of history at Penn State University, and she is working on a book that I cannot wait to read called Can't Eat a Medal: the Lives and Labors of Black Women Athletes in the Age of Jim Crow. Wow. Thank you so much for joining us, Amira.
Amira: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Lindsay: I wanted to start with the current state of out athletes in pro sports. It's a topic that has gotten a lot of ink and discussion throughout the years, and there hasn't necessarily been as much progress as I think a lot of us would have liked to see, especially in men's sports. As we all know, there are currently no out players in any of the big four men's sports leagues in the United States. There are Robbie Rogers, of course, in the MLS, is kind of carrying that flag. A few years ago, we had NBA player, Jason Collins come out on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He did sign a temporary contract and played a few games with the Nets, which was historic. So he did play a few games as an out athlete. But he retired, he was at the end of his career anyways, and retired after that season.
Around the same time Michael Sam came out of the closet, he was drafted in the seventh round of the NFL draft. And I think at the time people thought that kind of the flood gates were opening, that this was a historic...You just needed this one or these two, and then other men would feel comfortable coming out of the closet. Unfortunately, that's not what we've seen. It hasn't led to a wave. Is that something that surprises you, Amira?
Amira: Yeah. You know, I think it doesn't really surprise me because of the way that there's reactions to people like Michael Sam. It felt like there was a lot of deterrent in how they treated Sam and how Sam was kind of pushed out of the league, in his words. It almost served as a parallel to what we're seeing with Colin Kaepernick, right? There's a way to send messages to people who might want to follow in the same footsteps. And I think that’s…I'm maybe a skeptic, [laughs] but I found myself not surprised by that…Whatever the word is. That effect.
Lindsay: That pushback.
Amira: The pushback, that's the word I'm looking for.
Lindsay: Because he never did sign, you know, he never did play down in the NFL. He never did sign on a team. Now there are doubts about his performance ability, but look, people are always going to find excuses. It's exactly what we're seeing with Colin Kaepernick.
Amira: Yeah. Precisely. And I think actually, you know, one of the things that came out, I don't know if you guys saw about five days ago, was Ryan O'Callaghan, who's a former Patriots lineman, a former Chief, who wrote this, you know, kind of searing, moving piece coming out, and now he's also retired. And so I think that's the other thing we're seeing, is a few male players who, after their playing, then look back and say, now I'm out, now I'm out of the locker room and I want to come out at this point. And so I think part of the question is, you know, what does it mean to feel comfortable coming out after the fact that you're playing? And how can that also be an indictment on the kind of climate and culture of pro sports that don't feel conducive to being out while you're active athletes?
Brenda: Amira, can I just ask you how you think race plays a role in this pushback that these athletes are getting?
Amira: Yes. I think that's a great question. And that was actually in the wake of Ryan O’Callaghan's coming out this past week. That has been really on my mind. Michael Sam has been very vocal about talking about the intersection of sexuality and race. Jason Collins is another one. Actually in coming out, they both also invoked their race in the same sentence as their sexuality. And I think the two are not able to be separated. I think that there's certain narratives and understandings of Black male bodies that means it heightens the spectacle of being out as an athlete. It's confounding, I think, for some to have huge muscular Black men that fit into this narrative of athleticism and masculinity, also being able to invoke a certain sexuality. And I think Michael Sam talks about that. He talked about it, I think, in the most blunt way to say, you know what, I'm experiencing a lot of racism in the LGBTQ community. And I also am feeling a lot of homophobia.
He specifically mentioned the African-American community, but also society writ large. And I think that both of those moments offer opportunities to look at this intersection between race and sexuality. I'm interested to see the reaction to Ryan O’Callaghan, because I feel personally that it's very different than it was for Jason Collins and Michael Sam. Like, I think there's particular ways in which the response to Ryan's coming out hasn't been as much spectacle and pomp and circumstance, and I'm wondering, you know, how much that has to do with, you know, visibility. But I also think we can never take the intersection of race and sexuality off the table.
Lindsay: Absolutely. I mean, I think there are some differences, as far as Jason Collins was still active and Michael Sam was at the start of his career. So I think timing wise, it's a little bit different and might directly correlate to the amount of attention it gets. But also I must say, I was disappointed. I have a list of athletes, you know, that I follow on Twitter, and I really didn't see any NFL players – and if there were, they were few and far between – share the story of Ryan O’Callaghan, and that was really telling
Amira: Exactly. Well, the other thing I thought that was interesting about the story is actually the way he invokes sports as a saving mechanism in his personal narrative. And I think that's also a new thing that we haven't necessarily seen, which is to say he invoked his professional football connections as being the ones that enabled him to feel safe and to want to live and to come out. And I thought that was an interesting way of situating sports in his relation to his kind of narrative of coming out in a little bit different way than we've seen before.
Lindsay: I want to steer us over to women's sports right now, because I think women's sports often get left out of the conversation when it comes to out LGBTQ athletes. And there's a lot of reasons there, and I think we can delve into that. I mean, but look, it was only in 2005 and Sheryl Swoopes – who is problematic in her own ways these days [laughs] – but when she came out of the closet in 2005...And I want to read you the quote that she said when she came out. So this is in a 2005 New York Times article.
She said, "The WNBA had been in a kind of don't ask/don’t tell situation. Hopefully this will not have a negative effect on the WNBA,” Swoopes said. “Me coming out does not change what the WNBA stands for as a basketball league. I don't think there's any secret that the huge support we get comes from the gay and lesbian community. It's unfortunate that people, and not those only in the WNBA, are not able to feel like they can be who they are. They lose endorsements, they lose friends and family.” This was just a decade ago that Sheryl Swoopes said this. What do you think when you hear that, Amira?
Amira: Yeah. You know, it's so interesting because in some ways it feels dated, you know, on the eve of pride nights, you know, around the US women's national team league and the fact that there's all this discussion around “Is the league being too gay?” You know, we get these kind of ludicrous comments from Candice Wiggins to that effect. [Lindsay laughs] But in some ways it actually feels both dated and yearly persistent, especially when we're talking about endorsements, especially when we're talking about this concern of marketability. And that's, for me, what's really interesting, is the way people are still phrasing or kind of wading into being openly supportive of the LGBTQ players and fans and how it's so much framed as a marketing decision, right? Where is the intersectionality between sexuality and capitalism here?
Famously, Swin Cash, in response to another time that Sheryl was talking out and talking about the marketing of the league and needing to like endorse somebody like Skylar Diggins, who's pretty and can carry the mantle of the league. And Swin Cash aptly pointed out that we need to have a conversation of race and endorsement money and not just appearance and sexuality. And I think that that indicates something that has been on my mind, in a moment where, you know, in soccer, you have the women's and the men's national teams selling pride jerseys. You have a big store like Target now having a pride section. What does it mean now where you can actually market and capitalize on this? I think it’s actually changing part of the framework that these big organizations are thinking about their approach to these issues.
Lindsay: Yeah. And I think that, as we were saying earlier with the men, I mean, race plays such a huge part in this, and you can't separate the two. Brenda, I know you have some interesting observations about the race and sexuality on the soccer – or football, excuse me – side of the spectrum, comparing kind of how the US women's national team, how they view sexuality compared to some of the other international leagues.
Brenda: Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, soccer in the US is coded female. And that's the only place as in the world, as far as I know, where it is coded that way, where the women's team has been so dominant in shaping the way in which we see soccer, both at the grassroots level and the professional level. It's also an incredibly white team. That I think does play into how freely the women's national team feels as though they can express sexuality without taking the same kinds of marketing hits. And always women's sports are framed as marketing “problems,” quote-unquote. And so I think Amira’s point is really well taken when it comes to all women's sports.
Their justification for not supporting them is “Well, they're just not marketable marketable enough,” and if they are marketable, it's because they look like Alex Morgan and they have a beautiful ponytail and they're white and they're heterosexual. And this is not Alex Morgan's fault, certainly. [laughs] But it's a broader system. And then it's so interesting to even go international, if you look at it then, and look at what the US women's team is able to do, and compare it to like Nigeria or Brazil. I mean, in the case of Nigeria, I remember Grant Wahl’s reporting during the Women's World Cup, where the women were facing up to 14 years in prison because of homosexuality law, they weren't being called up. And then you have these ad hoc ways to exclude queer and lesbian players from women's national team.
Sissi, the captain of Brazil, I've interviewed her and she's explained that she wasn't called up. “It's not legal. It's not on the books,” like in the case of Nigeria, but it's still there all the time. And it will be so interesting to see, in the case of Brazil. Now they have their first female coach, Emily Lima, and to see if that changes, because right now the Brazilian national team has no out players. And so it's a real stark contrast, a real stark contrast with the US. Many of those players actually play in the NWSL here in the United States, most famously Marta, and none of them have come out. And so it's kind of fascinating. And again, at the same time, it's been a real whitening process, in the case of the Brazilian national women's team, because it's more marketable, it's seen as, “Let’s promote these players.” And of course it's hard to say what decisions an organization makes, what do coaches decide? How much does race and sexuality play into those different local politics?
Lindsay: That's really interesting. And especially the part about coding female, you know? I always think back to when the US won the World Cup and Abby Wambach kissed her wife at the time, and that was seen as such a big moment. And in many ways, Abby Wambach and Megan Rapinoe are kind of the faces of LGBTQ women in sports. And I wonder how much of that is the fact that they are they are these kind of petite-ish white women, as opposed to a Brittney Griner or something like that. And maybe there's something a lot less threatening about that, that you don't feel the need to coddle it as much.
Amira: Yes. I definitely agree with that. And I think that, you know, speaking to Brenda's point, a lot of the marketability with the US women's national team goes with that balance. So you can have Rapinoe and you can have Wambach because right after Wambach kissed her wife, what happens? Syd Leroux kissed her husband, you know, in a kind of mirror instance, because you can invoke the soccer moms you have on the team. You can invoke the Alex Morgans. And so it has been this kind of package of balance that I think allows for some permissibility. Because again, like you said, Briana Scurry, who of course was from a different era, but who was a Black woman, one of the only Black women on some of these national teams and out. You don't have…You know, she wasn't going to be the face, especially because of the time and the context. But it's very interesting that Rapinoe and Wambach get to carry that mantle.
And then you have somebody like Brittney Griner who, based on her ability and just her standout career, has definitely warranted a lot of attention. But I feel like also with the WNBA, and this is where you have this narrative of, oh, the league is dominated by lesbians running around it, that it's almost expected. I remember when Brittney came out formally, and there's all this stuff on Twitter, like, huh? Like, everybody knew that. And I think that that's exactly speaking to this point of like, well, in soccer in the United States or football, it’s coded female, but all the other venues of sports, the fact that those are seen as masculine realms. And so the very participation of women in these spaces is already calling into question both their femininity and their sexuality. And I think that actually has historical precedents, if you'll indulge me for a minute.
I studied the track women in the 60s who were Olympians, and a lot of them came from Tennessee State. Wilma Rudolph is probably the most famous one you know. But there's all this anxiety over being allowed to run without scrutiny on their bodies, on their femininity. And this is right around the time where sex testing was introduced at the international level in the ’68 Olympic Games. And there's just this quote that reminds me so much of our discussion today from coach Ed Temple at the time, who said, “Negro women, girls, they'll have no issue proving that they are actually females.” And he said in defense of them, “If you did not know them personally, you'd never believe that they were athletes, because all of them are attractive with fine features.”
And that quote sticks in my mind because you can see in that, part of his positioning is to protect them and is to protect their right to play, by asserting their sexuality and their femininity. And I think that that has been somewhat of a double-edged sword, is in order to break into these masculine spaces, there's a lot of people around the game who want to curate certain images, marketable images, permissive images about how you need to look as a woman athlete in order to not be seen and not be coded as a lesbian or as, you know, somebody who's actually a man. And I think that that bumps heads with the idea that, oh, if you're in this space, that's what you have to be. And if not, then you have to really play up the sex appeal. You have to show a lot of skin, you have to put makeup on. And it becomes a dichotomy.
Lindsay: I think that, you know, when we're talking about Brittney Griner and we talk about all this stuff, I always think back the fact that she felt that she had to be in the closet. I mean, not felt – she was pretty much told, she said, by Kim Mulkey, that she had to stay in the closet during college, even though people on campus and everyone knew. And that brings us to the final part of our discussion here, which is the homophobia that still exists within the coaching ranks, particularly in college. I was reading a really interesting article from Shannon Ryan from the Chicago Tribune about how most female coaches for women's sports who are LGBT are still in the closet. And once again, that phrase “don't ask, don't tell atmosphere” was used by a coach in a quote to Shannon Ryan.
And another quote I saw from Outsports said that there are only two women's head coaches of women's basketball that are out right now. So we see on the collegiate level, coaches afraid to come out almost as if this assumption that everyone involved in the sport is a lesbian is something that these people feel like they have to fight against every single day.
Amira: Yes, precisely. And I think that it is kind of a sad indictment of the state of affairs, but it also reminds you that sports are more than just the athletes, right? And so there's this fear and I think the fear is also, you know, it's rooted in recruitment, it's rooted in branding, It comes back to marketing. But I think there is a fear, especially for coaches of women's sports, that if they're out, they have this antiquated burden placed on them to almost prove that there's no hanky panky or anything, interest going on with their players. And I think that, again, this kind of unfortunate stereotype that we're clinging to.
It’s rooted in homophobia, and I think that it speaks to the entire culture that we're talking about when we're talking about this. It’s not just the players on the pitch. It's not the players on the court. It's the coaches, it's the managers, it's the owners. And we have a long way to go, I think, for full inclusion. Because, like you said, it's much harder if even coaches are afraid to come out to recruit and retain and make players feel safe. And I think that we have work to do.
Lindsay: Well, Amira, thank you so much for joining us. This is fantastic.
Brenda: Thanks, Amira!
Amira: Thank you guys so much.
Lindsay: We loved having you, and if you don't mind, I believe we will have you back. [laughs] We are now thrilled to be joined by Jen Mac Ramos. Jen is a Baseball Prospectus stats intern, a podcast host for The Hardball Times. They are a former assistant general manager for the Sonoma Stompers, and this Tuesday night they will be on a panel at the Arizona Diamondbacks for pride night. Jen, thank you so much for joining us.
Jen: Glad to be here.
Lindsay: I wanted to start…It seems fitting, because you're going to be on a pride panel this coming week. What is the experience like being invited to be part of that pride panel, and what kind of influence do you feel like panels like that have on sports fans?
Jen: Yeah, I'm very excited to…You know, I've been invited to be on a panel, and being a part of an LGBTQ panel, especially for a baseball game, I feel it does a lot of good because it shows people who are baseball fans, hey, we are making an effort to make the ballpark a little bit more inclusive, make it a safer space for LGBTQ folks and say, you know, we’re here to show that, you know, there are people involved in the industry as well who are LGBTQ, and it is possible to be a queer baseball fan and not feel like an outlier. And I feel like just trying to move towards that inclusiveness and trying to show the representation is really, really great.
Lindsay: Do you feel like overall the MLB is doing a good job or a better job at hosting these pride nights and at LGBTQ inclusion?
Jen: I would say that they're doing a lot better than most would expect, but it's still not enough. I still feel that there is so much that could be done. It doesn't have to be a specific pride night to have these inclusive events. But just to, you know, kind of do the whole practice what they preach aspect of, okay, we’re going to be more inclusive towards LGBTQ fans and, you know, not make it only one day where, oh, they're welcome at the ballpark. But make it year round.
Lindsay: What could they do to send those signals? I know when you were with the Stompers, that that organization tried to do some outreach while you were there. How did that go?
Jen: Yeah, it went really well, especially since the team had the first openly gay professional ballplayer. And there was a lot of support coming down from front office, down to staff, down to the team itself. And that's another thing that I found, that both David Denson, who was in the Brewers organization, I believe, he left professional baseball and he was the first out affiliate baseball player. And then Sean Conroy retired due to a lot of arm trouble. And now there's no gay baseball player who's openly out. And you know, there is still a layer of homophobia in sports that wasn't necessarily absolved.
Lindsay: Right, didn’t disappear overnight. [laughs]
Jen: Yeah.
Brenda: Jen, I wanted to ask you, because you've had so much experience in California and in the Southwestern area of the United States, and in this podcast it's pride themed and we've been trying to also talk about intersectionality with race. How do you see these events and their relationship with the Latinx community?
Jen: Yeah, that is something that I've been seeing kind of a little bit of a disconnect, just because when a lot of Latinx or, you know, any brown or Black group go to these pride events, it's not necessarily aimed at them. And they're trying to carve out their space in pride events, especially myself as a Filipinx, queer, you know, I'm still trying to find my space in these private events. And I think also historically, you know, these pride events were more geared towards LGBTQ white people, and I think it’s still present, but there's been a lot of movement towards making it a little bit more inclusive. But I can understand why there's a lot of POC pushback against pride events.
Brenda: How do you think they might…Like, to have any ideas for how they might change them or how one could structure them differently so that it felt more inclusive for fans of color?
Jen: I think it all goes back to representation and having people of color who are queer represented at these private events, at not just pride events, but also panels for queer people being able to show that you don't have to be a certain race to be queer. You can be any race and be queer. But, you know, showing Latinx queer people on a panel or showing Black queer people on a panel, just having that representation goes a long way.
Lindsay: Brenda, I know you've been paying really close attention to what's been happening in the soccer culture as far as a homophobic chants. It's something we discussed briefly on the episode…Well, not briefly. [laughs] We’re never brief about anything here at Burn It All Down. [laughter] Brevity is not our strong suit! But I think you had an update on the homophobic chants in soccer?
Brenda: I did, and it's dear to my heart. For the first time, FIFA fined the FMF, the Mexican football federation, for the famous p-chant. And it was 2 million and some pesos, which is about a hundred thousand dollars, for the fans behavior. And that's a really strong message, actually. It's not a ton of money, but it's not a federation that's banking a ton of money. And it sent a really strong message about the use of this hateful homophobic language. You use that language and you hurt your team, you hurt your federation. And it was fascinating, for the first time in the Confederations Cup, watching Mexico this week on Wednesday. They defeated New Zealand 2-1. And then for the first time I watched El Tri without hearing the chant. When it was a free kick, it was silent. And it was a beautiful, beautiful silence. So that's my update. I don't know how long it'll be successful for, but right now it's really nice to not hear.
Lindsay: That is impressive. And I think it's kind of putting money where your mouth is as far as promoting equality, literally. And that's not something we're really used to seeing from sports leagues. Sometimes I worry…And Jen, I'm curious your take on this. And I think this has to do with the intersectionality that we're talking about, because I sometimes wonder if these LGBTQ inclusive initiatives are becoming so corporate and so whitewashed, which goes hand in hand with corporate, unfortunately, that they begin to lose some of their effectiveness and become all about a PR campaign and not about real meaningful action. Am I just being really cynical there?
Jen: No, I agree completely, actually. To bring up a case in point, you know, I don't know if you heard what the St. Louis Cardinals did. They had a Christian faith night and they had Lance Berkman speaking at it. And Berkman has been an outspoken anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ activist. And having him speak on Christian faith night was just, you know, okay, yeah, he's kind of a Cardinals legend, but he's, in my opinion, not a good spokesperson for the Christian faith. And I guess there was so much backlash that they decided to announce their own pride night. And I feel like a lot of that is also PR. While it's good that they're actually doing something and having a pride night, I can't help but feel a little bit cynical and think, okay, they're probably just doing this because there was so much backlash to the Lance Berkman event, to the fact that they have one of the most volatile fan bases in baseball. And I can't help, but feel that there's a small corporate PR aspect to them having a pride night.
Lindsay: It's weird. There are these tough intersections sometimes. I was at the Washington Nationals pride night and it felt weird to be there. I mean, it was great to be there, but then to be cheering on Daniel Murphy, who of course has said a lot of homophobic things. And I think that there's still this disconnect at times between organizations. I mean, the bottom line is they want to win, and that comes before pretty much everything. And that's at a tough spot when you have people coming from these different backgrounds that are often possibly homophobic or racist or sexist, and not everyone is on the same page when it comes to inclusivity.
Jen: Definitely. And I feel that MLB has made a little bit more of an effort, especially with their diversity initiatives and having a former baseball player, Billy Bean, without the ‘e’ post-playing career, being out and gay and, you know, talking to all these teams. But that was also what led to Murphy's comments saying, like, I don't agree with that lifestyle – which, they might not agree it with it, but, you know, I would hope for a little respect because that is their choice to come out and they deserve that respect.
Lindsay: Final question. I interviewed you on this subject earlier this year about being openly non-binary and working in pro sports and what that meant. I just wanted to ask you, why was it important for you to share that and to talk about your identity? Because it's not something that you necessarily are required to do, but why is it important to you to pave the way for openly non-binary individuals in sports?
Jen: Yeah, for me, it was…I remember growing up and not necessarily understanding, you know, what it was with my gender dysphoria and not having any role models to look up to because you know, the concept of being non binary and having it told to me, I didn't realize that until I was in college. And I think for me, it was more I just want to be able to pay it forward and say, hey, if you are non-binary and want to work in sports, hit me up. I want to help. And I want to be able to show that it is possible and that being nonbinary doesn't necessarily push you away from sports.
But I also wanted to show that it is possible to make it in sports, especially for those who are still trying to figure out their gender. And just showing that, again, you know, going back to the idea of representation, I know that, you know, so many non-binary baseball fans reached out to me after and said, thank you. You made baseball a little bit of a safer space for me.
Lindsay: That's amazing. I love hearing that. Well, listen, thank you so, so much for joining us today. It was fantastic to talk to you, and good luck on Tuesday night. I can't wait to hear how that goes.
Jen: Thank you. I'm so glad to be on this podcast.
Shireen: Hi, Shireen here. We're so excited about our pride episode, and I'm even more excited to have my good friend and roller derby extraordinaire player, Alex Hanna. Alex is an assistant professor in the institute of communication, culture and information technology at the faculty of information at the University of Toronto. She received a PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And her research focuses on how new and social medias changed the social movement, mobilization and political participation. Her current project is the Machine-learning Protest Event Data System, MPEDS, a system which uses machine and learning data and natural language processing to create protest event data with little to no human intervention.
She is totally awesome at roller derby and way too humble, but as also an activist working on issues of queer and transgender inclusion in sports and higher education, and access to transgender health care. I'm so excited to have Alex on the show. Thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down, Alex.
Alex: Thank you for having me, Shireen.
Shireen: Okay, so first of all, happy pride.
Alex: Happy pride!
Shireen: How was your weekend?
Alex: It was pretty good. I went to the Dyke March and hung out a bit downtown on Church Street.
Shireen: Just for people that don't know, Alex is based in Toronto.
Alex: Yes.
Shireen: And was that your first time in Toronto celebrating?
Alex: Yeah, it was, I narrowly missed it when I came to visit last year, but I got in some good times and hung out with a lot of my derby folks this weekend as well.
Shireen: That's wonderful. Did the derby crew have any specific celebrations or did they have like their own parties or a mix of everything?
Alex: We had contingents in some of the marches. I was with the group and the Dyke March, and we had a group of folks marching with Outsports in the main march. I didn't make it to that one though.
Shireen: That's awesome. It sounds really, really fun.
Alex: We also had a game. I should not neglect to mention, every year we have a game called a rollout and it's a game for queer skaters and we have two games, and we have them on Thursdays. So I announced the first one and I played in the second one. The teams have great names. Like, the first game, the teams where Blundstone Brigade versus Glitterazzi. And the second game was Bi-Yoncé versus Gay-Z. [Shireen laughs] So, some really good times there.
Shireen: I saw that on Facebook. I think that's so great. And how did your team end up doing?
Alex: Well, I was on Gay-Z and we didn't win, but we had a real fun time either way. [laughs]
Shireen: What's that expression? It's just fun to be included. It's all just for fun. [laughs]
Alex: Yeah, right? It was a good time.
Shireen: So, tell me a little bit about your derby experience, and have you always played?
Alex: So, I started derby about four years ago now, and I did it as a way of finding more communities of queer people. This was in Madison, Wisconsin. And then I haven't really played a lot of sports in the past. I have played some sports in high school. I was a wrestler. I played baseball. I've played some soccer. But nothing really very competitively, or as something at a competitive level. So, like a lot of people, I came to derby probably being the first team sport ever really played.
Shireen: Did you know how to skate before you came? Like, roller skate?
Alex: No, I didn't. I had gone ice skating before, but I'd never skated on…We skate on quad skates, skates with two wheels in the front and two in the back, like you would see at kind of like jam skates or roller discos. But no, I didn't know how to skate. And a lot of people that play have hockey backgrounds, figure skating backgrounds, do know how to skate. Maybe not on quads skates, but have skated before.
Shireen: Was it hard to learn? Because I feel like I can go to some…I would love for you to teach me, because, you know, I'd probably look like a baby giraffe out there, but it looks so hard. Like, I've watched it and it looks really difficult, and not only just skating, but competing and circling and tackling people. It's phenomenal. If people haven't watched it, I’d highly recommend it. But were you surprised at how kind of big the derby scene is in Toronto when you moved here?
Alex: Not really. Actually, most large cities have a pretty sizable derby league these days. I think in Madison, Wisconsin, which is one of the very early cities and leagues that participated in what's called the flat track revival. So, lots of people, when they think of roller derby, they think of kind of the old timey, more WWE professional wrestling type of thing. But then the flat track revival, which took place about 10 to 12 years ago, was about playing the game on a flat track down a banked track. So, flat track, where you could lay track anywhere like a gym or any stretch of concrete really, and put down tape and you'd have a regulation track.
And so Madison has been a big part of that. It has a huge history and was one of the founding members of what was the predecessor to what is currently the Women's Flat Track Derby Association. So, now roller derby is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Most large metropolitan cities, at least in Western countries, have a league. So we're very densely populated in North America, but also lots of leagues in Europe. But growing into North Africa and in Eastern Europe, slowly but surely, and especially South America, we're seeing a lot more leagues pop up there.
Shireen: And the flat track roller derby I found really fascinating because it's so inclusive in so many ways. I mean, I don't know how many people know this, but when Trump came out with his travel ban/Muslim ban, one of the first associations, athletic associations in the world to come out with a very firm stance was the flat track roller derby. My friend, actually a mutual friend of Alex and I, sent me that information, and I was so excited to see it. Like, it's just badass from start to finish in terms of the message it wants to uphold of inclusion and fairness and justice. Did you find that as well in terms of inclusion of trans folks in derby?
Alex: Yeah, I think a lot of the ethos of derby has been built by very strong women and trans and queer folks. Some of the most high profile skaters in the WFTDA and in roller derby are queer women, and many of them are trans women. And it's taken work to get there. Of course these things don't come out of nowhere. That advocacy for trans and gender nonconforming people has taken a lot of work and advocacy from those communities. And I think we're seeing more and more of that. I think the WFTDA absolutely has a really good commitment to that. They recently brought on a chair of I believe diversity and inclusion onto the board. Well, I'm not precisely sure what that title is.
I think it's growing and there's definitely a growing, not only just to include gender identity and sexual orientation, but also identifying areas of deficiency, including racial diversity and diversity in terms of where women's flat track derby is represented within the world. Because as I said earlier, there's a strong representation in North America and Western Europe. But also we're seeing more of a commitment going into South America, Australia. There's a few leagues in the Middle East that I'm familiar with.
Shireen: Yeah. I saw a story about a roller derby team and sort of league in Beirut in Lebanon. And I was so excited about that, because there's also no uniform restrictions in derby. Like, women can play in hijab, they can play in sports bras, they can play in a tutu, and they can play in whatever they want to, right?
Alex: Yeah. You can play in whenever you want. I know this from seeing them. And I haven't played with this team because I haven't been back to Cairo in a while, but there's a league in Cairo called the Cairollers, [Shireen laughs] and looking at images of them, I mean, the women are playing in hijab and there's absolutely no restriction. And I can't even think of, you know, the only restriction on in uniform is like, your numbers have to be a certain size and you have to have them visible. But like, you could play in whatever you want. You know, I can't even imagine that being a restriction that would come up on the international level.
Shireen: Yeah, that's pretty amazing. I've seen some bouts and they're just so exciting. The culture is really fun. But like you said, there's always work to do. It's just nice to see a federation of sport or of governance that actually cares about those things and addresses these things, because in the sports world it's not something that we see very often. And do you think that the flat track roller derby can be a leader in sort of showing other, you know, what a disaster like FIFA is? Like, just can be a leader in terms of showing how it can be done.
Alex: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it’s also a question of scale. I mean, relatively, the WFTDA is a small association. But I think a big part of the ethos behind it is that it's for the skaters by the skaters. And so to be a member of WFTDA, a certain percent of leadership in these organizations have to be skaters, they have to be women. And so that is a huge boon. Like, if you compare it to anything like FIFA or…Actually, kind of the analog of the roller sports at an international level is kind of an organization like FIFA that has, you know, people who are not players dictating the rules and making kind of these very weird rules for people who actually participate in the game. So, yeah, I think just on a policy level, on a rule level, I think the WFTDA and roller derby could certainly be a model for other sporting organizations and federations.
Shireen: This is so awesome. So the team that you play for in your league, what's the name of your own team?
Alex: So, I am on two teams. I am on the Toronto Roller Derby All-Stars, which is our travel team, which represents our league. And you have to try out to be on the charter for our league. I also skate on a home team which competes with other home teams within our league in Toronto. And that home team has called it the Death Track Dolls.
Shireen: [laughs] So awesome. Your photos are amazing. I'm such a fan girl, and I have it on very, very good authority that you're like one of the best. [Alex laughs] So I'm so excited and I can't wait to come out with my “Go, Alex, go!” sign. With Ramadan and Eid wrapping up now, I can kind of get back into that, and I look forward to seeing you and cheering for you. And thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down. It was a quick conversation, but we're so excited to have your insight and your input on what I think is one of the most exciting women's sports out there. So, thank you so much. And Alex, where can people find you and your work and your awesome photos of roller derby?
Alex: You can find in my work at alex-hanna.com. But more importantly, you can learn about Toronto roller derby at torontorollerderby.com. And you can learn about the WFTDA, Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, at wftda.org.
Lindsay: Now I'm thrilled to be here joined here by Layshia Clarendon. She is a point guard for the Atlanta Dream. She is currently third in the WNBA in assists with 3.1 per game. Layshia, thank you so much for joining me.
Layshia: Thank you for having me.
Lindsay: So, I know that the Atlanta Dream just had their pride night. I believe it was on Friday. I know it was a tough game on the court, unfortunately.
Layshia: Yeah.
Lindsay: Well, an exciting game, but didn't end up the way you guys wanted to. But what was the night like as a whole, from the pride night perspective? Did the fans in Atlanta really embrace that?
Layshia: They seemed to. I thought the house was pretty packed and crowded. I didn't get a chance to see how the panel event that they did turned out. I know they did an event before the game, so unfortunately we didn't get a chance to go to all that stuff. But it's really cool things – all the towels in the bleachers and seeing the players wear their pride shoes and just see it be something that the Dream especially has really embraced and is not something that they're, you know, trying to talk about in coded language or kind of like “diversity night!” I think they do a really good job of owning it and celebrating it for all of us.
Lindsay: Absolutely. I mean, it's been four years now that the WNBA has really officially celebrated pride month. And this is, what, your first fifth season, correct, in the WNBA?
Layshia: Yeah.
Lindsay: So you've kind of seen the whole journey from them doing completely that kind of talking in coded language about their LGBTQ fans, which are such a huge part of the fan base. It used to kind of be, well, maybe if we don't acknowledge that, like, you know, we're not speaking out against it, but we're kind of pretending like that's not a big part of who we are. It's changed. Have you seen a significant change in that?
Layshia: I have. And I think we have in society as well. And I think it's a little more acceptable to talk about these issues. Obviously, being a part of the LGBT community, realizing we're nowhere near the end of our fight. There's still a long journey to go, but I think we've seen there be a much more accepting language. Even with just kind of the wave of activism, I think it's kind of moved on to...Not moved on, but kind of like now it's okay to talk about gay issues or like, oh, we can wear rainbows on our shoes. It kind of seems like it's also becoming the next trendy thing to talk about, and it's just becoming more accessible overall, which I think is awesome. And so I think some teams are more okay with saying pride night. And I'm not sure what the Dream has done in the past few years, but I think we're just getting to a better place with it overall.
And I do think there was that struggle in sports in the past, obviously with like, do we call it diversity night because we don't want to really own it? Or how do we kind of tiptoe around it essentially and not really own it? And so I think we are seeing for a number of reasons that we're starting to really call it what it is, and we're really pushing forward in society. And I think that's great overall, because language is so important. It's really important for me that it's called pride night and not like “diversity night.”
Lindsay: [laughs] Yeah.
Layshia: Like, diversity means a thousand different things! Religion and race and gender and like all these other things you could throw into there. Like, no, this is about LGBTQ people. We are celebrating them tonight for a very specific reason.
Lindsay: Right. I mean, I know you've written before about the fact that the first year with the Indiana Fever, there was a little bit of pushback, that maybe the players and coaches throughout the league and within that specific organization weren't comfortable wearing the shirt, that there was one night where you were all planning on wearing pride shirts and they disappeared. So they went away, they didn't exist. What was that like, finding that out just about an hour before the game that this moment wasn't happening?
Layshia: It was difficult, a little bit heartbreaking. Definitely very upsetting. Because, you know, I still don't know exactly specific names or who it was, but you know, you kind of show up and either play with or against these players every night and just kind of start looking around in terms of how we, a lot of us did with the Trump election, of like, you know, who didn't want to wear the shirts? Like, “Who voted for him?” kind of thing. There's that looking over your shoulder, like, wow. You know, I show up every day, and there is someone out there who doesn't believe that my life matters or that I should be able to be married or, you know, the number of different things that go along with that was definitely extremely hurtful.
Lindsay: Yeah. It's good to see that hopefully some minds are changing within the league as well. It has. They're changing along with society. I always think that, especially when we're talking about the WNBA, that it's important to acknowledge the intersectionality of sexuality and race, because I see that when people talk about like the US women's national soccer team, there are a lot of out athletes there, but it's not talked about in this don't ask, don't tell type way that you often see the WNBA get talked about. And I think I've seen that with Candice Wiggins, of course, talking about how everybody was gay. And of course there's been a lot of very knowledgeable people pushing back on her narrative.
And you've even heard lately…I mean, a couple of years ago, Sheryl Swoopes, who of course was a trailblazer when she came out in 2005 and did a lot of great things for the WNBA. But even she has said, you know, maybe we need to publicize all the women like Skylar Diggins and nobody else. Do you feel that there's this…That the WNBA is constantly trying to figure out how to toe that line?
Layshia: Absolutely. And in some ways I'm like, how do we fault the league when we live in a society that's very difficult to navigate that, especially as a business, you know? It's not something that's easy. And I think we do struggle with the race aspect and the whole, like, people of color, specifically Black people being perceived as more masculine because of their skin color, and even having different players with different gender expressions, I think maybe vary a little bit more than other leagues or, you know, short hair on me might look different than short hair on Megan Rapinoe who’s blonde, that kind of thing. And so I do think our league takes a harsher criticism. And like you said, there's the intersectional factors there that people don't realize. It’s not just gender. Then you have to talk about race and racism and how those two things intermingle.
And so I think the league in some ways has done the best they can in trying to survive. And I think we're doing good job of pushing forward, but we have so many things to take into account. Like we said, the gender, the race and gender non-conforming people, or the people who express their gender differently. And so you have all these different factors that can make it difficult. But I think we are turning into the league…And we have been in the past as well, the kind of social activism league, and we've been leading the way. We saw that last year with the Black Lives Matter movement and the protest a lot of the players did. I think we're doing a good job. It is really hard.
Lindsay: I think you are. As I said, I do think…I understand what you're saying. I mean, a sports league is automatically going to be corporate, right? There are going to be these corporate elements to it. It's not something you can really fight against if you want to get paid and all that stuff, you know? But at the same time, I think a lot of that activism has to come from the grassroots level because they can’t be tied at the corporate level. And that's what's so incredible about what the WNBA athletes have done, because they've taken a risk. And people say, well, they don't make as much money, so it's not as big of a risk. But in many ways it's more of a risk because you don't have a big safety net to fall back on, right? [laughs]
Layshia: Right! I don’t have this figure rookie salary that the NBA is on. Exactly. And for a lot of people, a lot of their clout comes from playing in the WNBA. So you're going to get better overseas contracts if they're on a WNBA team and a winning team, or if you win different awards. So there's a risk there, because their livelihoods are like, oh, I'm not in the WNBA anymore, I might not make as much overseas now because I spoke out and now they don't want me.
Lindsay: Absolutely. You're very open about the fact that you are gender nonconforming or non-cisgender is how you have put it in the past. A lot of times, unfortunately, you hear all these things from the scare media, I like to say, you know, these crazy activists on the other side of the political spectrum, who are always saying things about like how people who are embracing the gender, you know, or out of the gender binary or…And especially transgender, unfortunately, that this is like a threat to women's sports, because sports are divided by gender. Is that ever a conflict that you feel? I mean, to me, it's kind of ridiculous a lot of times.
Layshia: Oh, I think it's absolutely ridiculous. I used to get in arguments with my parents when I was younger, because that was when Brittney Griner was coming up in high school and just…Not arguments, because I was still in the closet, but I kind of would push back and they’d be like, why she can't play for the USA team or, you know, all the speculation that people make about her. And I was just raised a lot of questions and answers, like, you realize that we need to start talking about these issues more and we need to have more space for them, more conversations and dialogue. And obviously we live in a world that's less divided by male/female, and the binaries really don't give people any space to be in between. And people are threatened when we don't fit into those boxes.
So it's really hard for a lot of people to take that. I know a lot of issues have been coming up with that, and sports is we're seeing a lot more trans people come out at younger ages. And so I think it's conversations we have to start having. I know Chris Mosier has done a lot of really good work, a trans man who ran for the Olympic team, trying to get policies changed. And we're trying to see that happen at younger levels and even high school and middle school. And we saw the problem come up with a young woman who was playing soccer. I think the little girl was eight years old. They were like, oh, she looks like a boy. And then the coach had put her down as a boy.
And it's like, that hurts all of us. And so there's just little things like that when kids aren’t…You know, I don't know if they are trans or not, but they're just gender nonconforming or they just literally don't fit the binary right now. And so that in that space where we just don't give people enough room to be who they are. And we're putting people in boxes. And it's damaging at that young of an age for a little girl who just wants to wear her hair short, which I like wish I would have had my hair that short when I was a young kid because I love it. It's awesome.
But you know, you never could cut your hair because your parents, or you couldn't wear the clothes you wanted to wear because your parents made you look a certain way. So, a big part of my fight too is just breaking down those binaries and showing people that like, what is beautiful, what is female, what is woman can look different in so many ways, but that is very threatening to a lot of people.
Lindsay: Yeah. And you said, I mean, this is stuff you started really thinking about from an early age. Did do always kind of feel that you were outside of this gender binary?
Layshia: Definitely in wanting to dress a certain way. And then, you know, you kind of get this label of like the tomboy, and then you hit that age where it's not really okay to be a tomboy anymore. So you have to dress girlier, but you know you don't like those clothes necessarily. And so just kind of always flirting with a lot of that. But I think in sports, that is a space where it does give women a little more fluidity with their gender. And so it was still kind of accessible to wear sweatpants, you know, and you could still be girly enough for your parents to be okay with, but not necessarily going to buy you boy jeans. I didn't have my first pair of boy jeans until the girl I was dating in high school bought them from me, and they were secret. And so I was like, oh, I can wear them when I go out!
And then when I went to college and could finally buy my own clothes, and it's like, okay, now I can dress the way I want to dress. They didn't really love that at all. But I definitely…Like, there's moments that I've been wanting to – maybe my dad will hear this now, because I've never told him, but I think about it often and have wanted to write him a letter, or just talk to him about it, is like, I wish I could’ve worn a suit to prom. I wore a dress, and it wasn't miserable because I still felt like fluid enough that I still felt like, okay, like, it wasn't as atrocious to me to have to wear a dress and I felt okay.
But if I had a choice and it was much more open, I would've probably worn pants and a suit and like a bow tie or a tie. And I wish they had been more open with me because that was a moment I could have shared with my parents and my dad to be helping me get dressed and, like, teach me how to tie a tie, which is something I had to learn in Banana Republic from a random lady in a dressing room when I got to the draft. [laughs] And so like, they missed out on that moment to share with me in my coming of age story, and that wasn't something they had because they weren't as open-minded as they are now. And that's something that I think a lot of parents can miss out on when they're stuck on the way they want their kids to be, you know?
Lindsay: Yeah, they miss being a part of these momentous occasions, because they're scared of things that, you know, for some reason, gender fluidity scares people in this way that I will and will never understand. And you see it with sexuality as well. And I don't know why people feel that they have to stay so inside these boxes. What do you feel like leagues and the WNBA or just sports in general can do to continue to push this boundary to make things a little bit more open for the gender nonconforming. And I mean, it's going to come a time now when there are going to be transgender people who want to compete in the WNBA, you know what I mean? Like, this is the future, hopefully. Hopefully people will continue to feel comfortable with themselves and come out and express themselves.
Layshia: Yeah. Oh, man. I think we can… [laughs]
Lindsay: [laughs] Big question, I know.
Layshia: I know, like 30 different things to do. Education is huge, and that's a big one I try to having in conversations with my teammates daily and people around me. And I remember when I was at Indiana, there's like gender policing going on. And so my teammates are laughing, or good example is because I don't want to tell everyone what kind of underwear I wear, but I would wear like girl’s underwear on one day and boy’s underwear a different day. So they'd be like, oh, like one day I’m a boy, and the next day they're like, oh, you're not on our team anymore, you’re with the boys, you know, you're girly today. And I'm like, stop gender, policing me! I can wear what I want. What do you mean? I'm like, don't gender police me! Like, I can wear the clothes I want.
Or another girl who kind of looked boyish would paint her nails and then she'd kind of get made fun of. So in that way, I think starting to do the work with ourselves and the people around us to kind of police that locker room language and that homophobic language. And obviously we know that can happen a lot on the male side. And I think even on the women's side, we can be really biphobic and we can be like, oh, are you with us today? Are you on the other team? So, in that way, trying to educate ourselves and the people around us, and be really open-minded.
And then I think speaking out has been a big one. And I think not enough of us athletes are speaking out about trans issues quite yet. And obviously they're always the most marginalized group in our community. And so continuing to speak out for trans people and using our voices in general to talk about all of these issues I think is going to be huge. And watching the NBA draft the other day was pretty cool because you're starting to see a little more gender fluidity with just how the style is going nowadays. I think it's much more androgynous in men's clothing. So you're seeing like the kind of slim fit cut, and so I'm hoping people like Russell Westbrook will help change that. And seeing people like that and saying, okay, men can wear clothes like this.
Lindsay: Cam Newton is trying to change it all by himself. [laugh]
Layshia: Yeah! So like, people can argue who's MVP and all these issues. And I don't think, you know, Westbrook or whoever, but I love Westbrook no matter what because of the way he dresses. I'm like, yeah. It's like, I don't know if he intentionally realizes the work he’s doing by pressing his gender that way. But like, because he's being who he is unapologetically, it's like, it gives us another example of what Black masculinity can look like and what a guy can look like and how they can express their gender. And so hopefully it's moving in that way. But I think the gender issue is not to rank them one or the other, but I think people are starting to grasp the sexuality issue a little more, in terms of the family members I've talked to and just people older people in general.
But when you start talking about gender, they're like, oh god, here we go. A whole nother level. [laughter] It's like, people getting on board with like the sexuality, but then you start talking about trans issues and there's like, oh god, I just can’t, it’s too much! And I'm like, no, it’s not that hard.
Lindsay: It takes a lot of education, and I think you have to be open and you have to be okay, because, look, sometimes you will say things wrong and then you just have to apologize and know that you did it wrong and accept that and move on and apologize. And there's a learning curve, but there's not that big of a learning, like, come on. [laughs]
Layshia: Right. It will be like, there's so many letters, and I can't with the Q…And that's something I have a lot of empathy for, because I was that an event with Chris Mosier who I'm really good friends with now. And he was like, when we did the introductions, the person who was running the event didn't ask people's pronouns. And so then he was like, can you please say like on top of, you know, introducing yourself and who you are, can you please express your pronouns? And then a couple of people forgot to do it. He stood up again and said, hey, reminder, please say your pronouns. Like, this is supposed to be an LGBT space. And then a couple other people went before me and then it went back to me and I totally spaced and didn't say my pronouns. And I'm like, god, like, the privilege of speaking in this area, and I realized that that's something that I need to work on. Like, I'm being a part of the LGBT that's marginalized and like our trans community.
And so that was a big wake-up call for me a couple of years ago to be like, okay, I need to educate myself more. But I was terrified. I'm like, oh my god, like, trans man. I had to be like, okay, not a trans woman. Okay. Like, and like learning the language and just being afraid to make a mistake and to look dumb or look stupid, or like ignorant is very real. But I found that a lot of people in the LGB and T community, when you're trying hard and you're open minded and you're doing it with gentleness and kindness, like, sure, people have bad days and might go off on you one day. But they're very open. We've been very open to say like, it's okay. Like you said, you make mistakes, but like, you're trying to accept me. You're trying to reach out. You're trying to educate yourself. Like, we can work through the problems.
Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, I hope that despite the political climate today, that because of the grassroots and because of activists like you speaking out, that we are a society still moving forward and that there will be progress once the politics catch back up to it. [laughs]
Layshia: I hope it’s the last dying breath of like white supremacy pushback. [laughter]
Lindsay: One can only hope. Well, listen, thank you so, so much for your time today. It was really great to talk to you, and I hope to talk again soon.
Layshia: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Lindsay: Okay. Now it is time for everyone's favorite segment, the burn pile. Joining us for this segment is Zoë Hayden, the editor in chief of The Victory Press, a website that is dedicated to women's sports and intersectional feminist issues related to sport. Thank you so much for joining us, Zoë.
Zoë: Thank you so much for having me.
Lindsay: Let’s face it. Sometimes we really like to be buzzkills here at Burn It All Down. Earlier this episode, we talked about the story of Ryan O’Callahan, former Kansas City Chiefs lineman, who came out publicly in an emotional Outsports article last week, that was written by the Outsports co-founder, Cyd Zeigler. Ryan was in the closet during his entire football career. He planned on killing himself when the career was over because he didn't think he could be out publicly. But luckily towards the end of his career, the Chiefs noticed that he was struggling. He got some help. He ended up coming out to the Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli, and a few teammates. Everyone was pretty supportive. And you know, here he is, years later now, deciding to share a story and be an advocate.
We are very grateful for Ryan and really admire him telling his story. It's definitely gonna help a lot of people. But – there’s always a but! – as the sports world has been gushing over this Outsports story, pretty much every football writer I know was tweeting about it. But Zoë is here to point out that there were a few problems with the way this story was framed and the way that Outsports tends to handle these types of stories and narratives.
Zoë: Yeah, I think that it really says a lot when a lot of the people who were sharing the story were white established football writers and other white male sportswriters, as opposed to like actual queer people or actual gay people in the community. Obviously this story, I felt, was really tailor made for like cisgender, heterosexual consumption. That narrative in and of itself I think when you read it at face value, it isn't outwardly problematic. But when you start looking at the context of the story and Outsports, it becomes a lot more problematic because Outsports is really always pushing this narrative that, you know, sports is ready for you to come out. And I think that that is a very difficult thing to say, because you can't speak for all of sports and you can't speak for each individual athlete.
And I think that it's more paramount that athletes feel like they're ready to come out before the community says, well, we're ready for you. Like, obviously the community needs to be ready, but that push and pull is very difficult to pin down, especially when there are so many moving parts. Like, an athlete might experience discrimination at home, in a way that isn't the same as the discrimination they might experience in a locker room. And we need both of those things to kind of get to the same place. Like, I feel like the mission of this site Outsports should be to disseminate information and try to make it so that the wider community is ready, rather than saying, oh, we're ready, why aren't you here yet? And that's really what Outsports has been doing, I feel.
Lindsay: Especially the last couple of years. I mean, I know that Cyd last year said that he's upset at athletes for staying in the closet, essentially, because he thinks that these athletes owe it to the next generation to come out.
Zoë: I think that there's a very specific part of the gay community that does feel more accepted in the wider world. And I do think that that has a lot to do with, you know, the fact that they are white, cis men. I had a girlfriend in the city that I live and, you know, we've been yelled at by people or like spoken to by people on the street in a very crude way. And that's the small stuff, the microaggressions and the actual aggressions that build up to not feeling like you're safe in the world. And the way that this particular article portrayed those things is like incidental or not real or not important was very demeaning. It was very demeaning to the idea that, you know, we deserve to be safe. It was almost like those things that make us feel not safe are not real.
And when Cyd says that, you know…Even though I do believe he walked back that statement, but that doesn't excuse it at all. When he says that, like, you know, people should come out, that's so demeaning to the idea that, like, we should all be in charge of our own safety. It's very dehumanizing, actually.
Lindsay: There's also a lot of damaging things about…First of all, and Jess Luther was the first person to point this out to me, so I have to give her a hat tip here, but she said that, you know, you read a story about the Kansas City Chiefs that's very positive about the Kansas City Chiefs, that's really praising Scott Pioli the general manager who Ryan came out to, and really praising the trainers for seeing these warning signs. And all of that is great, but that doesn't mean that Kansas City Chiefs are this flawless organization. I mean, you just had Jovan Belcher, with this same administration, with Pioli, with the same coaches that were there when Ryan was there, there's a lawsuit saying they missed a lot of the warning signs, that there was a lot of bullying to keep Jovon Belcher in the game, to keep him playing when he was unhealthy.
And of course we know that he ended up in a very, very tragic situation, which I am not saying was the Kansas City Chiefs’ fault, but it happened at the same time that he did, you know, he killed his girlfriend and then of course went to the Kansas City Chiefs parking lot and committed suicide there in front of the coaches. And so it seems like if you're talking about the Kansas City Chiefs and you're talking about suicide and you're talking about depression, that it's kind of weird not to mention that super high profile story, unless it just doesn't fit the narrative you want to tell.
Zoë: Right. And, oh my god, like, I'm not a football person in the least, so I know that story, but I didn't even make the connection in my head that that was the same people. So like, in this moment now I'm like, oh my god, I can't believe they didn't mention that! I thought it was really remarkable how, when he did come out to the GM, how there was actually like a homophobic microaggression in the story–
Lindsay: Right! Yeah.
Zoë: That was about how, like, the story is supposed to be, “Here's how you're going to be accepted.” But the coach said, well, as long as you don't touch my butt. Like…[groans] Why?
Lindsay: Yeah, right. Right there, right there. Well, so, I think onto the burn pile. And Brenda, I know you have something to add that's kind of related.
Brenda: Yeah. I'd like to throw onto the metaphorical burn pile Sally Jenkins’ column this week, which is another narrative that actually contributes to making an unsafe environment for LGBTQ athletes. Sally Jenkins is a former Sports Illustrated reporter who now opines in the Washington Post for reasons that are totally unclear to me. She started her campaign against Title IX in 2002, as she's tried to convince readers that Title IX, contrary to all evidence and reputable studies, has hurt women's athletics. [laughter]
Zoë: Oh my god.
Brenda: Yeah. Thank you for that. Oh my god. And it started in 2002 with a bunch of terrible columns, continued. And this week, for the 45th anniversary, we were treated to a column called “Women's college athletics don't need another coddling parent.” So, J-school students, please be advised, that’s a terrible title, period. And really, so, basically she greenlights abusive bullying by coaches, by caricaturing athletes as “coddled,” basically saying, oh, now women athletes want to go home and visit their parents? Look at this generation, they’re just cry babies, right? And she attributes the dismissal of coaches for verbal abuse as the result of overly sensitive kids, rather than, you know, enforcing regulations that are in place to protect student athletes, which we know are really exploited.
And we know from studies how LGBTQ athletes suffer bullying in the locker rooms over and over again. And she doesn't mention it once in this incredibly illogical column. So, I'd like to throw her journalism on the burn pile. [Lindsay laughs] I'd like to actually throw most of her columns onto the burn pile for continuing to create this rhetoric that is totally false, that somehow athletes are taking advantage of a system, that women athletes in particular are taking advantage of a system instead of suffering from it.
Lindsay: Burn. All right, we are almost to the end of the episode here. So it is time for some celebration, time to honor our badass woman of the week. Brenda, who do we have?
Brenda: Well, for this week, Burn It All Down’s badass woman of the week is Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury. And it very well could be the badass woman of the year. She scored 19 points last week to pass Tina Thompson's all time leading scoring record in the WNBA, and that was 7,488 points. She's already added another 25 points to that. So she's at 7,519 points. And just to give you a little context here, Taurasi has reached that in her 13th season, whereas it took Tina Thompson 17 seasons to get there, and she's having a great season, looks like she's in terrific form. And so she may own all those records in the WNBA by the time we're done.
Just a little recap of Diana's career. She's 35 years old, she played for UConn and was the first pick overall in the 2004 WNBA draft. And that year was her first year in the Olympics with Team USA, where she medaled with a gold. She went on with the team to achieve gold medals in 2004, 2008, 2012, and last year in 2016 in Rio. She's a three-time WNBA champion, a two times WNBA finals MVP, a seven time WNBA All Star, a nine time all WNBA first team, a two time all WNBA second team, and it's exhausting to read all of her accomplishments. I can't imagine actually doing them as I'm exhausted reading them. But I don't want to quit before I say that she is also a three time NCAA champion. She led UConn to three consecutive championships. And all of this doesn't even pretend to include all of the overseas success she has in the WNBA’s off season. So, Diana Taurasi is truly a badass woman of the week.
I have my own little trivia, my Diana trivia here, which is she's also Argentine American, could have played for the Argentine national team, and she's in a very long and illustrious line of Argentine basketball stars. Some people know Manu Ginóbili, other people know Diana Taurasi. But she was raised in the US to Argentine parents, and we're so happy that she decided to play for Team USA as she led them to victory four times. [laughter] We'd also like to say, just to blow out this pride party, a very hearty congratulations, because she is a newlywed. She married her former Mercury teammate, now retired basketball player Penny Taylor, just before the season started. So, there's a ton of things to be happy about surrounding Diana Taurasi, and we have some great quotes, don't we, Linz?
Lindsay: We do. Really excited. We're going to be hearing from Tina Thompson, LeBron James, and some of today's WNBA stars who all sent their social media congratulations to Diana Taurasi.
Announcer: Taurasi fights through a screen. She got the ball in her hands. She's standing at the corner of destiny and history! Taurasi for the record! Of course, the number everyone's looking at is 7,489. She just passed Tina Thompson. She is number one all time in WNBA history.
Tina Thompson: Hey D-Money, congratulations on becoming the WNBA’s all time leading scorer. It is my absolute pleasure to pass the torch onto you. I just want you to know that I'm so proud of you. You are most definitely one of the best players to ever play this game.
Ivory Latta: Hey, what’s up everybody. It’s me, Ivory Latta of the Washington Mystics, coming to you guys to say congratulations to Diana Taurasi on becoming the all-time leading scorer in the WNBA. Girl, you ain't nothing but a walking bucket! [laughs]
Layshia Clarendon: Hey there, it's Layshia Clarendon from the Atlanta Dream. I just want to give a huge congrats to Diana Taurasi for becoming the all time WNBA scoring leader.
Can't think of anyone who's more deserving than you. Keep bringing it.
Elizabeth Williams: Hey, what's up. This is Elizabeth Williams from the Atlanta Dream. I just wanted to give a huge congratulations to Diana Taurasi on becoming the WNBA's all time leading scorer. You have made this game so much more popular and so much more exciting to watch.
Tiffany Mitchell: Hey, it's Tiffany Mitchell from the Indiana Fever. First off, I just want to say congratulations to Diana Taurasi on becoming the all time leading scorer. You definitely changed the game of women's basketball, and I've had the pleasure of guarding you in the states and overseas.
LeBron James: What up y’all, just checking in with y’all, man. This message is for the one and only and WNBA all time leading scorer, Diana Taurasi. What an unbelievable accomplishment, DT. So happy for you. So proud of you, man, and everything you've been doing throughout your whole career. You set the standard, not only for women's basketball and so many girls that have looked up to you, but basketball in general.
Lindsay: Thank you all so much for joining us today on this episode of Burn It All Down. Brenda, we made it to the end. How are you feeling?
Brenda: I'm feeling awesome. I'm kind of feeling like I'm at the end of the party. My head is full of excitement and buzzing and I'm ready to take a nap.
Lindsay: Exactly. [laughs] Like I end all parties, I will end this party with a nap. You can download Burn It All Down from iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or TuneIn. We are housed at SoundCloud. We appreciate any ratings and reviews and subscriptions you can give us. They help us more than you know. We also have a GoFundMe page, which is where we are raising some money to help make this a sustainable effort. That money does not go into our pockets. It all goes into production, and to improving our microphones and getting some help editing and making sure that we can continue to bring this podcast to you in a weekly manner; burnitalldownpod.com is our website, and you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. The links will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us.
Brenda: Thank you!